Chris Ryan: With about nine minutes left in the third quarter and the Spurs holding on to a slipping six-point lead over the Warriors, Stephen Curry raced up the court off an Andrew Bogut rebound. Curry is not a normal point guard, so the normal rules of playing the position don't apply to him. This of course, is part of the fun of watching Stephen Curry over the last couple of weeks. He played like ... Stephen Curry, showing off a skill set so unique, on a pair of ankles so brittle, it felt like you were watching some endangered species. Like you sat down in your living room and boom, what in the shit, there was an Iberian lynx.
A survey of the players and teams making moves in last night's NBA action.
1. The Kawhi Leonard–for–George Hill Trade
Danny Chau: It was a good night for the 2011 trade that sent George Hill to the Pacers and the draft rights to Kawhi Leonard to the Spurs. At the time, it was a shrewd attempt from both franchises to patch up their more glaring weaknesses. The Pacers needed a versatile, two-way player to fill in the gaps left in the Pacers’ backcourt, and the Spurs needed an infusion of youth, a lottery-type talent that they hadn’t been able to acquire since Tim Duncan (really fitting that Leonard fell one spot outside the lottery). Now, less than two years later, the trade is one of the reasons why each team is only one win away from their respective conference finals.
Hill and Leonard were incredible last night. Hill was the only bright spot in the Pacers offense, which shot 35.4 percent without him (his 9-for-14 outing single-handedly raised that figure to 40.8 percent), while Leonard, who was nearly perfect from the field, shooting 7-for-8, was the model of efficiency for a Spurs team that couldn’t miss.
Hill has been exactly what the Pacers needed to make this kind of playoff push. Like Mike Conley Jr., who is rightfully getting a lot of buzz right now, Hill will likely never be an All-Star, but his role as a game manager and a sneaky offensive threat sets a standard for the Pacers offense. He’s provided a steadying influence for the once-wild Lance Stephenson and allayed Paul George’s growing pains in his ascent to stardom.
Leonard, like Hill in his days as a Spur, plays a significant role as a fourth option, never hijacking the attention for too long. It was frustrating to watch Hill at times, knowing he was capable of more, but there was always going to be a ceiling to his contributions playing behind Tony Parker and Manu Ginobili. There is no such limit for Leonard, but he often plays like there is. His youthful reticence and by-the-book abidance to the system is partly the cause, but we also might be asking too much of him too soon in the first place.
Fortunately, there’s still time, because it seems likely both teams will advance. Last night was a good example of what these players are capable of when let loose. It wasn’t a trade that heavily tipped the scales at the time, but both teams have come away as big winners since.
2. The Basketball Koans of Metta World Peace
Knicks are trying to find themselves on the go. Kinda like take out food or a drive thru. They can't find the ketchup. >>>>>
— Metta World Peace (@MettaWorldPeace) May 15, 2013
netw3rk: In his inimitable, fractured, non sequitur way, Metta World Peace perfectly summed up the Knicks', and Mike Woodson’s, strategic efforts against the Pacers last night in Game 4. And listen, regardless of what lineups Woodson puts on the floor at whatever junction of the game, the Pacers are the best defensive team in the league. They have excellent rim protection, the athleticism to guard Melo, and they are the best in the league at defending the 3-pointer. They are the better team. OK, fine, but in what universe is playing Pablo Prigioni — who you could easily argue is New York's best point guard — 3 minutes and 26 seconds TOTAL, while giving Jason Kidd, who at this point is ambulating around the court sheerly by rigor mortis, almost 16 minutes?
Robert Mays: Considering my own, “Oh, no, not again” reaction to Steph Curry’s twisting left ankle last night, I can’t imagine what that image must’ve looked like for Warriors fans. When his foot turned late in the third quarter, Curry was 30 points into what was, by default, the biggest game of his professional career. This is the first playoff trip for Golden State since the glorious 2007 postseason, and with his fellow All-Star teammate David Lee done for the year, Curry’s performance has never mattered more. The Warriors played Denver to a standstill in Game 1, and behind a shoot-the-lights-out, dozen-or-so-assists night from their point guard, they were about to have Game 2, home court, and, seemingly, a shot to steal a series in which no one gave them much chance. Then Curry limped off the court and toward the bench, and the Warriors' hopes hobbled off with him.
A survey of the players and teams making moves in last night's NBA action.
1. Dirk Nowitzki
Robert Mays: Well, don’t look now (actually, you probably should look), but the Mavericks are coming. Dallas is 10-4 in March, and with last night’s OT win against the Clips, the Mavs are a game behind the Lakers for the last playoff spot in the West.
Last night’s Dirk performance was just the latest step in an upward trend that would make any team that draws Dallas in the first round a bit uneasy. After missing most of the first two months of the season, Nowitzki’s gone from 16.9 points on 44.2 percent shooting in January to 18.9 on 52.9 percent in March. His 33 last night were a season high, and they came on 21 shots — another season high. Just as the Mavs need Dirk to be Dirk, he finally can be.
By Grantland Staff at
Aaron Ontiveroz/The Denver Post via Getty Images
So much amazing is happening, and the Shootaround crew is here to help you keep track of it all. You'll find takes on moments you might've missed from the previous night, along with ones you will remember forever.
netw3rk: Without narratives our brains would be lost in a chaotic swirl of disparate and unconnected events. Narratives are the stories we tell ourselves. It's the way we imbue our lives with meaning. Without narratives we would all go through our lives like some debauched French existentialist philosopher with Memento disease. Are sports narratives reductive and dumb sometimes? Heck yeah; most times even. But the alternative would mean confronting the reality that you are watching dudes run back and forth, meaninglessly bouncing a ball, as time flows inexorably toward the eventual destruction of Earth when it is swallowed by our aging sun. That's no fun at all. So without any further ado, here are 16 mainstream narratives pertaining to the Knicks-Nuggets game in Denver presented in March Madness bracket form.
I’d had a similar thought when the dunk happened, but I was doing my best to ignore it. I wasn’t ready to admit that all those hours I’d spent last week scouring the annals of alley-oop history were wasted. Alas, they were. The AOx+ (a.k.a. the wholly scientific metric used to determine alley-oop awesomeness) clocked in at 9.1, the second-highest figure ever recorded. That number is mostly a product of Brandon Knight’s death, and DeAndre reacting like he just killed Brandon Knight.
Because the previous power rankings are now obsolete, we figured this would be a good opportunity to sort through some of the other omissions that readers pointed out upon seeing the original post. With some thorough examination, we concluded that only one of these dunks (the first one below) was good enough for the new top five (sorry, Shawn Kemp), but the others are definitely among the best of the rest.
A survey of the players and teams making moves in last night's NBA action.
1. The 3-Point Shooting of the Denver Nuggets
Sometime during the second quarter of last night's Clippers-Nuggets game, I did a Twitter search for "zone is for cowards." This term, coined (I believe) by Bomani Jones, is something I actually agree with. It's not because I don't think zone defense is effective' I just think it looks bad, aesthetically. Like they did against the Thunder on Sunday, head coach Chris Paul Vinny Del Negro and the Clippers went to a match-up zone defense to frustrate the high-flying, interior-decorating Denver offense. And it seemed to work for a bit; the Nuggets, for once, were the team that looked like they weren't getting enough oxygen. Then came the third quarter, and Denver found its range, hitting 6-of-7 from deep, outscoring L.A. by 10 in the quarter. We've all gotten used to seeing this from Denver:
The trade deadline, even a mild one, reshuffles rosters and hints at franchise priorities going forward. The changes and the signals combine to heighten the scrutiny and pressure placed on certain players. Here, we present a list of who — and what — is on notice after last week’s relatively uneventful deadline:
By Ben Detrick at
Issac Baldizon/NBAE via Getty Images
For most of the year, Miami is for Lamborghini-driving Argentines and frat bros with barbed-wire tats at Wet Willie’s. But for a brief, fragile window, during the annual Art Basel, the city is Little Downtown New York. Whether by happy accident or cunning scheduling, the Knicks just happened to play the Heat right in the middle of Art Basel this year. Adding to an orgiastic week of art shows, musical performances (A$AP Rocky rapping at the Delano Hotel), parties with gratis champagne, and half the taggers from Bushwick skateboarding into the Design District, there was also a matchup between the two best teams in the Eastern Conference. Advantage: David Stern.
This couldn’t have been more different from the first time the Knicks and Heat tangled. Held in the immediate aftermath of Hurricane Sandy, the game took place when parts of New York were still shrouded in darkness, when subways were flooded and the battered citizenry was subsiding on Utz bodega chips. Miami might not have tanked, exactly, but it’s difficult to imagine Coach Spoelstra delivering a fiery oratory in which he pounded on lockers and demanded that his soldiers send the fans in Madison Square Garden back to their cold, dark rat traps in sadness. After absorbing a pounding from the Knicks, members of the Heat smiled and embraced their temporary betters. That’s not usually what occurs when a team gets the breaks beaten off by a conference rival in a season opener.
But last night’s game? Everyone knew that one counted.
So much amazing is happening, and the Shootaround crew is here to help you keep track of it all. You'll find takes on moments you might've missed from the previous night, along with ones you will remember forever.
Let's forget for a second that though the Knicks were playing on the road in Charlotte, the noise in the building was mostly for them. Let's put aside that the Bobcats were losers of four in a row going into the game, that they had a charming if overmatched lineup (Kemba, MKG, Bismack, Gerald Henderson, former Speaker of the House Tip O'Neill and the robot from Short Circuit) on the court, and that they were playing like a bunch of Treadstone/Blackbriar agents trying to viral off their blues (BOURNE LEGACY JOKES, GUYS. AMIRITE?). Let's forget all that. You say caveat, I say cave-J.R.-SMITH-HEROBALLLLLLLL!
By Zach Lowe at
Jesse D. Garrabrant/NBAE/Getty Images
It’s too early to draw meaningful conclusions about teams or players, but after just a week, we can say this: One of the league’s glamour teams looks surprisingly comfortable in its own skin, while a would-be contender fresh off a massive long-term roster change is showing worrisome early signs.
The team making me smile: The New York Knicks, whose existence over the last 12 months (and beyond, really) is a glaring reminder against reading anything into a mini-streak of any kind. And let’s not go crazy, even though the Knicks are in the top three in both points scored and allowed per possession after games against two solid opponents; both Miami and Philadelphia in their current states allow New York to play small ball without consequences, and Carmelo Anthony, despite the glittering start, has hurt his shooting percentage (43.5 percent) with three or four irresponsibly nutty attempts in each game. (J.R. Smith remains New York’s reigning King of Irresponsibly Nutty Attempts.)
So much amazing is happening, and the Shootaround crew is here to help you keep track of it all. You'll find takes on moments you might've missed from the previous night, along with ones you will remember forever.
The Resurrection and Re-Murdering of Mike Bibby
There was a moment Wednesday night when Mike Bibby was the best basketball player in America. Off to an energetic start in the first quarter before a crowd of no more than 342 Miamians, Bibby pressed the Knicks offense into an early cluster of 3-pointers, brisk pull-up jumpers, and lithe dunks. Melo slashed. Amar’e skied. J.R. Smith didn’t totally ruin everything. There Bibby stood, a 33-year-old third-string point guard on a gasping seventh seed playing for their lives against the presumptive conference champs, and he was running things. And man, was he out of breath.
A few weeks ago, in the midst of watching Danny Granger exact some strange semblance of revenge on the Knicks during the Pacers come-from-behind 112-104 win in Indiana, I found myself awash in what today seems like a very logical wave of déjà vu. Minutes before he’d be ejected for hip-checking Leandro Barbosa in the game’s final 10 seconds, J.R. Smith showed himself to me. Or at least he showed me what I should have seen all along.
